Could you kindly express why I was down-voted for this?
–
zehelvionJun 26 '12 at 7:39

1

I like the colon; so did Capt Kirk. "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations..." As for the downvote: I'm guessing that someone wondered why you didn't simply Google "usage of colon in sentence" and find your answer there (or, if you did, why you didn't better explain why you were still confused). It wasn't my downvote, but I can't say I find it unjustified, either. (@Kris: The apostrophe was an error in the version I pasted from; since I can't edit, I reposted this comment, error fixed).
–
J.R.Jun 26 '12 at 11:35

I respect your opinion and taking the time to help me better understand the reasoning. Knowing this, I don't think it was warranted as I did search for it here and on google and obviously did not find a suitable answer. I don't see the point in discouraging new users from posting and learning without the benefit of guiding them in the right direction. Saying go 'google it up' is not the answer to everything.
–
zehelvionJul 3 '12 at 4:23

2

@AWW: I see this discussion rather often on EL&U. I didn't say "Google it yourself" was the answer to your question, I said that you may have gotten downvoted because you didn't spend any time explaining what research you may have done. If you hover over the downvote arrow, you'll see a tip: "This question does not show any research effort." When someone asks a basic question without explaining why they are confused, despite trying to find an answer first, then downvotes may happen. "Google it" isn't the answer, but, if you're unwilling to do that much, don't be shocked at a downvote or two.
–
J.R.Jul 3 '12 at 8:07

You'd generally use the form "The purpose, to disclose information" after a co-ordinating phrase, thus: "The format is that of a formal report; the purpose, to disclose information."
–
KrisJun 26 '12 at 10:56